Diablo III Auction Houses Will Soon Be Gone For Good

Diablo III was released in 2012 with an in-game auction house to help players find epic loot to help them in their quest to defeat the Prime Evil. Players could spend in game gold or real world money to gain the edge they needed against the forces of hell. This auction house will soon be shut down for good in exchange for a new, more balanced loot drop system.

When Blizzard introduced Loot 2.0 with patch 2.0.1 they had begun the process of shutting down Dialbo III's auction houses. These marketplaces have been closed for active trading since March but have remained open for players to collect their items and gold. When these auction houses close down on June 24 any unclaimed gear and funds will be gone for good. Blizzard has sent out emails to any affected players of the shut down. To claim anything that is still stored in the auction houses just go to the "Completed" tab in the auction house window.

So what is Loot 2.0 anyway?

This new system for loot drops came about because of the painfully low rare-item drop rates which forced players to go to the auction houses to try to find some epic gear. Under Loot 2.0, a system that was put in place makes it so all items have a chance to become "smart loot". Smart loot items roll intelligently based on your character to determine the item attributes, making the chances of finding items with stats useful to your character's class much higher. Quests can also now reward players with items instead of just gold an experience.

Having played the PC version of Diablo III when it came out and comparing it to the recently released console version (which includes Loot 2.0) I can say that the game has become much more fun to play. I had a gold epic loot drop in the second act of my first play through on Xbox 360 versus my PC playtime in which I saw zero gold drops in an entire play through and a half.

Remember that Diablo III Ultimate Edition, which includes the Reaper of Souls expansion, will be available soon for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Xbox One and Playstation 4 as well as PC. Happy looting!